The Moon and Venus (not Jupiter)

First, don't misunderstand me. I know the bright object above the moon is a planet, almost sure it's
Jupiter, but I'm not a astronomer, so I'm really just using my best semi-educated guess. I prefer rocks. On the earth, specifically.



Not as good as what you would have seen a month or so ago, as Phil Plait showed on his blog, with a link to a flicker search showing a good deal of pictures of Venus and Jupiter and the Moon together.

My personal favourite?
Smiley Crescent

Just though maybe anyone who had the chance to look outside may want to.

Nevermind, it's Venus, not Jupiter.

[edit on 29-1-2009 by RuneSpider]

That is Venus... And I just went outside to look at this... I haven't seen the moon look like that in awhile.

I actually just snapped a shot of this from my southern view. Yours came out much better.

Nice shot. It sure is a bright one.

Hahaha!

Was just having a U2U conversation with a member about how awesome it was tonight.

Thanks for bringing us the shot to the board!

reply to post by TwiTcHomatic


It'd have been better if I could have shot out the street lights but... they tend to gt angry about that 'round here.

I was sure it was Jupiter, thought that Venus was only visible around dusk.

yeah it is Venus, I was able to grab look at her with my lil Walmart telescope, got to see just a bit of the shape and a little bit of the crescent. very beautiful.

The Cresent appeared almost as an eclipse to me.

I was able to see the darkness covering the bit of light quite clearly in a circle.

reply to post by interestedalways


Ah, with all the streetlights here I could only make out the brightest parts, glad my camera didn't shake to much while I was taking the pictures.

I remember how on Cape San Blas, since there are no extra lights around you can really see the night sky. It's amazing.

No its a weather balloon...you didnt see anything but a weather balloon...

Actually it really does look like a weather balloon, its certainly the right colour...meh.....its probably a planet

I know people hate Wikipedia as a source, and rightfully so do I. But here's some confirmation as to what you photographed being Venus;

Venus (pronounced en-us-Venus.ogg /ˈviːnəs/ (help·info)) is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love. It is the brightest natural object in the night sky, except for the Moon

And this is the part that I dislike Wikipedia officially quoting on the same page.

As the brightest point-like object in the sky, Venus is a commonly misreported 'unidentified flying object'. U.S. President Jimmy Carter reported having seen a UFO in 1969, which later analysis suggested was probably the planet, and countless other people have mistaken Venus for something more exotic

en.wikipedia.org...

Funny how this gives no further elaboration on this analysis.



[edit on 29/1/09 by Majorion]

It's Venus...I tried to get a shot through my 80mm scope but the clouds moved in. I did manage to get some daylight shots of the moon and Venus with my Canon digital camera though. Once my post count gets up then I'll post 'em if interested.

Here is a daytime image of Venus and the Moon:

Daytime Venus

Originally posted by griffinrl
Here is a daytime image of Venus and the Moon:

Daytime Venus

The daytime shot is unusual.

Thanks for putting it up.

Originally posted by RuneSpider
I know the bright object above the moon is a planet, almost sure it's
Jupiter, but I'm not a astronomer, so I'm really just using my best semi-educated guess.
[edit on 29-1-2009 by RuneSpider]

it's quite easy to know if the object in question its a planet or a star. stars emit their own light so if you watch them for a couples of seconds you will notice that they flicker. some stars even show traces of greenish and red light. planets just reflect light, so they are just stable dots of white light in the sky to the naked eye. they do not flicker, change intensity, or anything else.

i can almost garantee you it's not jupiter because you cannot see it with the naked eye in those circunstances. venus is the brightest in the sky (as the guy above me said) and people often mistake it with the polar star but if you use what i have said above you'll know which is which.

i was able to watch venus very very close to the moon in early december. but that's not unsual in any way. just take some cool pics and enjoy.

Most of the flickering is because of the atmosphere. My understanding is that because the planets are closer and reflect more direct light from the sun then atmospheric turbulence doesn't have as much affect. What's really cool is to think that when you look at a star those little photons travelled all that way for millions of years just to hit you in the eye. Now that rocks

Pilas is right on about the color. One distinctive thing about planets is that usually their color is very distinctive. Mars and Jupiter are more reddish and Saturn is more on the yellow side. But I'm color-blind too so what do I know




[edit on 30-1-2009 by griffinrl]

Originally posted by Majorion
Funny how this gives no further elaboration on this analysis.

More here :

Perhaps the most celebrated UFO witness of all time was the governor of the US state of Georgia, a former American naval officer trained in celestial navigation and nuclear physics, who was later to become president of the United States: Jimmy Carter. In 1973, Carter reported that four years earlier he and 10 other people in the town of Leary, Georgia, had watched a brilliant UFO low on the horizon which appeared to move towards them and away again, while changing in brightness, size, and colour. He estimated the distance as between 300 ft and 1,000 ft, and said that at times it became almost as big and bright as the full Moon.

This case was thoroughly investigated by Robert Sheaffer, who described it in his book The UFO Verdict (Prometheus, 1981). For a start, Sheaffer found that Carter was nine months out in his recollection of the date. Of the ten claimed witnesses, Sheaffer could find only one who remembered the incident even vaguely, and he thought the object might have been a balloon. But with the correct date established, Sheaffer found that the witnesses had been looking straight at brilliant Venus. The errors in his report are typical of those made by UFO witnesses: the size and brightness of the object is overestimated, the distance is underestimated, and spurious motion is attributed to the object.

Source: Astronomical Causes of UFOs

I can relate to CHUD's post for sure. In the spring here in my area Jupiter and Saturn hang on the horizon early in the morning well up untill the sun comes up. As the stars fade away you have these 2 huge, bright "objects" right in front of you....very strange looking if you don't know what they are. The local radio stations light up with calls about them. Happens every year.